FIGURE ES-1 Flow diagram of product–process development. This diagram seeks to capture series and parallel activities at several levels of detail over time during the development of a product. Some of the required activities are listed along the arms of the V while others, not associated with particular phases of the process, are listed across the bottom. Software tools are not available (red) for many of the required product development activities. For other activities, software tools may be emerging (yellow) or common (green) but are not interoperable or are used inefficiently.

subsystems—the brake subsystem, the suspension subsystem, or the engine. The subsystems are then integrated into a platform, in this example, an automobile. Finally, at the enterprise level (the tips of the V), such matters as marketing, distribution, and life-cycle management are considered.

Bridging design and manufacturing requires the ability to conceptualize, analyze, and make decisions at all levels of the V in Figure ES-1. Using this framework, knowledge and information from several disciplines can be integrated to make intelligent decisions at all levels. New tools can enable the effective application of this process. As depicted by the color scheme in Figure ES-1, software tools are not available (red) for many of the required product development activities. For other activities, software tools may be emerging (yellow) or common (green) but are not interoperable and so are not used together, or are used inefficiently. When tools are fully interoperable, designers and engineers can use and link various data and models for a given activity as well as across different activities required for product realization. For example, tools that allow data to be easily shared instead of being regenerated or re-entered